FRELIMO, OYE...EEEEEEEEEE!

The candidate of the ruling Frelimo Party in Wednesday’s mayoral by-election city in the southern Mozambican city of Inhambane, Benedito Guimino, has won – but with a significantly lower majority, in percentage terms, than his predecessor, Lourenco Macul, whose death precipitated the by-electionAccording to the parallel count, undertaken by Mozambique’s main observer group, the Electoral Observatory, a coalition of religious denominations and NGOs, 16,763 people cast votes at the city’s 54 polling stations. Guimino won 12,682 votes (78.5 per cent of all valid votes), while his sole opponent, Fernando Nhaca of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), won 3,475 (21.5 per cent).Turnout was low – only 38.24 per cent of Inhambane’s registered voters bothered to cast their ballots. But this is nothing exceptional - low turnout has become the norm in Mozambican municipal elections.The Electoral Observatory’s parallel count is in line with the preliminary figures announced by the state body that organises elections, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE). Rosa Macausse, the Inhambane STAE director, told reporters on Wednesday night that, in 50 out of the 54 polling stations, Guimino had won 11,383 votes (77.8 per cent) and Nhaca 3,237 votes (22.2 per cent).The result is, of course, an overwhelming Frelimo victory – hardly surprising, since Inhambane has always been a Frelimo stronghold. But it is much less overwhelming than the result of the last municipal election, held in 2008.Then Lourenco Macul cruised to victory with 90.94 per cent of the vote. There were two opposition candidates, from the former rebel movement Renamo and from the Party for Peace, Democracy and Development (PDD), who between them took 9.06 per cent of the vote.Thus Nhaca has more than doubled the opposition vote in Inhambane and has reduced the Frelimo majority from almost 91 per cent to 78.5 per cent. This is no mean achievement for the MDM. Statistically, it is a better performance than that of MDM candidate Manuel de Araujo in the by-election in the central city of Quelimane in December.Araujo won that election – but he started from a strong base of opposition support: Renamo and the PDD won 45.82 per cent of the Quelimane vote in 2008. In December, Araujo won with 63 per cent of the vote. He thus increased the opposition vote in Quelimane by about 38 per cent. But Nhaca has increased the opposition vote in Inhambane by 145 per cent.It doesn’t feel like that to the MDM whose immediate response was outrage that they had not won. MDM General Secretary Luis Boavida issued a statement on Wednesday night claiming that the heavy police presence in Inhambane had intimidated the voters.He pointed to ugly incidents in which, according to the MDM, 53 of its members were detained at polling stations, and MDM drivers were prevented from taking food to the MDM polling station monitors.The police also briefly detained well-known human rights lawyer Custodio Duma for daring to take photographs outside a polling station.